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Regatta Notices: 2005 Hobie 16 North American Championships

Added by damonAdmin on Jul 18, 2005 - 01:29 PM

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The 2005 Hobie 16 North American Championship gets underway in Ventura, California on Wednesday July 20.

2005 marks the championships return to a supplied boat, round robin format thanks to the support of the Hobie Cat Company. Hobie Cat has generously supplied 35 brand new Hobie 16s for the regatta. (http://www.hobiecat.com[4])

Over a week and a half of racing the Hobie Class Association of North America will determine the 2005 Hobie 16 Youth, Women's and Open Champions.

The regatta will start off with racing for the Hobie 16 Youth and Women's North American Championship on July 20, 21 and 22. Over the weekend of July 23 and 24

the qualification round will take place for the Open Championship. The qualification round allows teams that have not pre-qualified through the North American ranking system to qualify for the Hobie 16 Open Championships. Over 500 teams appeared on the Hobie 16 rankings last year but only 50 pre-qualified spots areavailable for the regatta. In total 70 teams will qualify for the Open event.

The Open Hobie 16 North Americans will start on Monday July 25 and run through Friday July 29.

Who To Watch

The Hobie 16 Youth North Amercians will likely be a battle between defending champions Mike Siau and Trey James from Manlius, NY and Jason and Charles Hess, the top ranked team from Guatemala.

Who To Watch

The Hobie 16 Youth North Amercians will likely be a battle between defending champions Mike Siau and Trey James from Manlius, NY and Jason and Charles Hess, the top ranked team from Guatemala.

In the Women's Championship Annie Nelson (CA) and Kathy Kulkowski (NJ) will be tough to beat. This pair finished second at the 2004 Hobie Alter Cup and are the only women's team to ever finish that high at the event. Nelson is also a past Hobie 16 Womens World Champion.

The favorite to win the Open Championship and the title of Hobie 16 North American Champion has to be Enrique Figueroa and Jorge Hernandez from Puerto Rico. Figueroa and Hernandez won the Hobie Tiger class World Championship only a few months ago in Santa Barbara, CA. They were also the Puerto Rican Tornado representatives at the 2004 Olympics finishing seventh. Figueroa has won four previous Hobie 16 North Americans in 84, '85, '90 and '02. This team is among the best in the world and they are likely to demonstrate that fact in Ventura.